Many people are now hailing Messi as the best ever player. Well, he is not the best ever. He is not even the current best I think. He may be the best dribbler in the world. He is certainly the quickest player in the world but to say that he is the best player
in the world is I think a bit debatable.
There are many reasons for that. 3 of them are:
Ronaldo is way more all rounded player than Messi. Messi cannot head the ball. Cannot take free kicks as well as Ronaldo and does not have brute pace. Hence, in a very restricted system of football, is Messi made to appear better than Ronaldo.
Messi’s 53 goals are in no way equal to Ronaldo’s 54 (or 53 if you like) goals this season. Firstly, because most of the goals Ronaldo scored, were hard goals. Even though he had some good amount of tap ins, he had to a lot of running or work before the goal to get the goal. Ronaldo does not have the privileges that Messi has at Barcelona. Barcelona play an attacking style of play. People are moving all the time and creating space for Messi to take advantage of. The people who are moving are not just people, they are people like Xavi, Iniesta and Pedro. World class players. While at Real Madrid, Ronaldo is pretty much on its own. Even in Manchester United he was pretty much on his own. The team depended on him. At Real Madrid Ronaldo has to play upfront alone most of the time because of Mourinho’s style of play. Ronaldo has not got the luxury of that much free space because Real Madrid have people like Khedira, Maria and Oezil instead of Xavi, Iniesta and Pedro. Real Madrid players are not gelled enough yet.
Messi has only performed in one league and for one club. For a side that has a world class player at every position you can think of. Ronaldo has scored goals in two of the toughest leagues in the world. He not only has scored goals, he has scored lots of goals, lots of solo goals and while Messi’s goals might look like solo goals, they are not actually solo goals, because his teammates work a lot off the ball to give Messi that kind of space where he can get 1 vs 1 against opponent’s defenders.
These were just some of the reasons why Ronaldo is more of a utility player than Messi. Messi has only proved himself at Barcelona and not even Barcelona, he has proved himself with Barcelona’s greatest club side ever. For me, he has to leave Barcelona and showcase his talents somewhere else in order to be regarded as a true legend.
He has to prove himself in another system to get that title of the best in the world. Ronaldo has done that already. Ronaldo can play the plays that Messi can provided he has got the team and the strategy to do with. It depends so much on the coach (or manager) as well.
Tell Messi to play upfront on his own against 6 foot giant defenders and score these kind of goals. If there is one player who can run after hopeless long balls and make something out of them, that is Ronaldo not Messi. Messi cannot even get to long balls let alone making something out of them.
What I mean is, all that people see is the goal Messi scored against Real Madrid in the semi finals of the Champions League 2010-2011 and the goal he scored against Manchester United in the finals of the Champions League 2010-2011. They should also pay attention to what Messi’s teammates were doing when he was making those so called golden runs.
For me the old Ronaldo was much much better than this Messi. Even the new Ronaldo can be considered to be better than Messi in the sense that he can play under a variety of systems and has no dependence on his teammates. Take Xavi, Iniesta out of this Barcelona line up and then see, how many “solo” goals Messi scores.
Messi is a brilliant player no doubt. One of the best of his generation, but to be called the absolute best of his generation or of any generation, I think he has to do a little more than just score in a team as good as Barcelona’s. For starters, I think good performances for Argentina would be perfect.
On an ending note, I just want to ask this question. Why has Messi not scored or even looked to come close to his levels at Barcelona? Why has he not scored solo goals by beating 5 or six players for Argentina, which he seems to do so regularly at Barcelona.?
You may make the argument that this new Ronaldo is a flop as well as far as performance for national side goes. Yes it is valid and I am not saying that Ronaldo is the best either. I am just saying that he has more impact with Portugal than Messi has with Argentina and just have a look at the difference in the quality of the squad the Argentina has and the squad that Portugal has.
Ronaldo did come close to scoring amazing goals many a times (some recent examples would be ,the one against Spain in that friendly and against Ivory Coast in the World Cup 2010) and did light up the Euro’s with Luis Figo where they both just burned defenders on the wings.
So to cap off, Messi needs to do two things in order to be even considered amongst all time greats. Perform (not necessarily win) with Argentina and for a club other than Barcelona in a system other than that of Barcelona’s.
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